From the sixth to the eighth century CE, the Buddhist philosophers paid considerable attention to the issue of the caste-classes. Far from seeking to reform the non-Buddhist social environment, they endeavoured to undermine theoretical attempts at "naturalizing" the social statuses, especially Kumarila's doctrine of the perceptibility of jati. Significant parts of their critique is strongly indebted to earlier, mainly canonical arguments shaped in order to neutralize the Brahmins' pride in caste. But closer scrutiny also reveals the innovations that were made possible by the renewal of Buddhist semantics around the so-called apoha ("exclusion") theory. Eltschinger's study presents the gist of the early Buddhist arguments, the modalities of their appropriation by later philosophers as well as the new developments induced by the epistemologists. The rigorous denial by the Buddha and his followers of the Brahmanic idea of castes as a natural fact is a well-known detail in the long history of the study of India’s social structures and their ideological background. From early canonical texts to later philosophical literature, this denial is regularly attested.Printed Pages: 256.

Caste and Buddhist Philosophy: Continuity of Some Buddhist Arguments Against the Realist Interpretation of Social Denominations (Buddhist Tradition Series) Vincent Eltschinger